When the Tide-Flute ceased its singing, leaving the nook in that deep, velvety quiet that always followed the turn of the flood, Qiao Ming laid out his afternoon work upon the black walnut table.
The upkeep of a land-mapper’s equipment in an underground ocean vault was an unceasing battle against the acid-burning malice of the salt. In the damp air of seventy deep-water lengths, iron rusted in forty days, copper blossomed into powdery green rust in sixty, and raw leather stiffened into brittle, cracked horn that would snap under the tension of a ten-pound lead weight.
Survival depended upon grease.
On the low table, Qiao Ming arranged four blocks of pale, solid sheep fat, rendered two moons earlier from the fat of wild mountain sheep that grazed upon the high terrestrial cliffs before the lowlands drowned. Beside them sat a baked-clay jar of amber pine resin, gathered from stone-hard drift-logs, and a small iron melting skillet with a long handle wrapped in hemp cord.
Yan Zhiqiu sat upon her three-legged stool on the opposite side of the hearth, having moved from the cold glow-stone berth to enjoy the dry blasting heat of the soapstone kiln.
Her eyes followed every motion of his hands with the keen, test interest of a scholar studying an unfamiliar craft. In her lap lay the Broken Slate, its surface now fully clean of black silt, resting upon a soft square of dry wool.
